Jury Duty: What Do You Do?

In San Francisco County, people are summoned for jury duty regularly—it seems like every other year or so. It’s ridiculous. Usually my jury number never gets called to actually go into court which is great.

The last time I got a notification, Dean told me to ignore it. I insisted you can’t ignore it! He says he always ignores them.

Then I read him the consequence:

If you fail to appear, you will be subject to a fine or imprisonment pursuant to section 209 of the California code of civil procedure. Section 209 requires the Jury Commissioner to pursue non-respondents. If you receive a Notice of Failure to Appear, you must contact the Jury Office at (415) 551-3608 within 10 business days to reschedule your service or to explain why you cannot serve as a juror.

Dean assured me that nothing would ever happen if you did nothing and ignored a jury summons. I totally disagreed.

Our locksmith came over last week. I’m not sure how we got to the topic of jury summons, but then he said, “Jury duty? Yeah, just ignore it.”

I was appalled.

The locksmith continued, “The courts don’t have the resources to follow-up on people who don’t go to jury duty. I know that for a fact. I know people who work for the city and they have all said you can ignore the summons. You won’t ever get fined. My wife is just like you, so I just started throwing away her notices before she saw them.”

What say you? Do you adhere to your jury summons or do you ignore it?

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10.22.15

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I was able to get off back when I was 9 months pregnant with a doctor’s note believe it or not, but haven’t gotten any requests since. So, can’t speak more than that about it, but still very interesting to see what others have to say about this.

I actually haven’t been summoned for jury duty since I lived in MA… and I moved away from there in 2001. Never got called in Chicago, haven’t been called since living in CA. So maybe I’m not the best person to ask… but if I got summoned, I’d go. I actually do believe it’s a responsibility as a citizen – and I can’t help but think that, if something happened and I was dependent on a jury to decide my fate (or the fate of someone who’d wronged me or my family), I’d want smart, thoughtful people on that jury, you know?

It depends but now I am ignoring it. The reason is that last time I went I ended up filing a complaint against the judge.

It was supposed to be a simple case and I was picked. I filled out the questionnaire that was given out. I spent about three hours being grilled by judge about my belief system. Finally, I told her that I was tired of her asking the same question in different ways. She explained to me that I needed to be impartial and throw my belief system out the window more than once. After three hours of badgering, I was dismissed and filed my complaint.

Here in Wisconsin we have to call the night before we are to go to see if they need us. I wasn’t needed so didn’t have to go. Most of my co-workers haven’t had to go either. One who did was excused after she told them her brother was killed by a drunk driver – it was a drunk driving case. I don’t know anyone that ignored the notice completely.

I’ve never been summoned.. at all. Weird, right? I don’t think I’d ignore it because I’m SUCH a teacher’s pet to this day, but I might get out of it because of anxiety. Like that the setting would give me panic. I could easily get a therapist to say that.. because I think it’s true!

I ignored it exactly one time (of many calls to jury over the years) but it was actually that I forgot. I called in a about a month after and they said that my name was not called so I got checked off as having served. I essentially did my jury service without even being there. But, I won’t ignore it purposefully. I’m too much of a big chicken.

I would not ignore it. It is one of the duties of being an American. I always vote, and I show up for jury duty. Given that so many in the military give their lives for our country, I think it’s the least I can do.

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